Residents of Langley are wondering why they are receiving Surrey voters’ guides in their mailboxes.
Walnut Grove’s Ron Steele said he received the glossy 24-page Surrey voters’ guide at his home and he was surprised at the blunder.
“I just thought how incompetent these people in Surrey are,” Steele said.
Surrey staff became aware of the problem on Wednesday morning.
A staffer told The Leader Wednesday night that the city used Canada Post to get the guides to all homes in Surrey.
Canada Post uses a Forward Sortation Area, which draws on the first three digits of the postal code, most of which remain along city lines.
An exception is the postal code beginning with V1M, which straddles Surrey and Walnut Grove in Langley.
Staff say there were 900 brochures that went into the Langley area and cost the city $114 to produce and mail.
Staff said the city was still able to get the brochures out to all the homes in Surrey despite the mistake.
South Surrey’s Michael Proskow said he was also disturbed to see the Surrey First election pamphlet bundled with the City of Surrey election guide.
“You just assume everything in your hand is Surrey First advertising, and it wasn’t,” Proskow said. “They came in the same handful.”
He said in all likelihood the letter carriers put them together for easy of distribution.
“I wouldn’t suggest they (the city) had any certainty of it happening,” Proskow said, adding he just smiled when he saw it.
City staff confirm Proskow’s reasoning for how the events unfolded.
It’s just the latest in a series of unfortunate pre-election mistakes that included misprints on the ballots at the first advanced polls. The ballots neglected to list party affiliations of two candidates who were affiliated with One Surrey.
About 800 ballots were compromised and are being counted separately, as per the instructions of the ministry in charge of local elections.
One Surrey is appealing to the ministry to have a third party take over control of Surrey’s electoral process.
One Surrey campaign manager Brad Zubyk said a letter was sent to the minister in charge on Wednesday. Zubyk couldn’t say when he expects a response.
He doesn’t blame anyone for the errors, but said the municipal electoral system is in disrepair.
“If this goes forward, changing the system, I’d be happy with that,” Zubyk said.
